Schlitterbahn co-owner, slide designer charged with...

1of 3Tyler Miles, an operations director for Schlitterbahn, pleaded not guilty to charges of involuntary manslaughter and aggravated battery among others in the 2016 death of Caleb Schwab at the Schlitterbahn park in Kansas City, Kansas.Photo: /Associated Press

Three Schlitterbahn Waterparks officials now have been swept up in a criminal probe into the 2016 decapitation death of a 10-year-old boy at the company’s Kansas park.

An indictment unsealed Tuesday in Kansas reveals for the first time that — along with park co-owner Jeffrey Wayne Henry — ride designer John Timothy Schooley and Henry and Sons Construction Co. Inc., Schlitterbahn’s construction firm, also face charges of second-degree murder, aggravated battery and aggravated endangering of a child in the death of Caleb Thomas Schwab. .

The 10-year-old, the son of Kansas state Rep. Scott Schwab, died Aug. 7, 2016, while riding the 168-foot Verrückt slide when he hit a hoop that held protective netting on the ride’s second hill.

The indictment names Henry as Verrückt’s “visionary and designer” and Schooley as the slide’s lead designer. It accuses both men of ignoring safety standards during the slide’s design process and warnings about the ride’s potential danger.

If convicted on all 18 counts, each defendant faces a maximum sentence of almost 139 years and fines potentially totaling $3.4 million.

Under Kansas law, suspects can be charged with second-degree murder if evidence suggests the act was committed “unintentionally but recklessly under circumstances manifesting extreme indifference to the value of human life.”

Last week, a Wyandotte County grand jury indicted Schlitterbahn, along with Tyler Austin Miles, a director of operations for Schlitterbahn, on charges of involuntary manslaughter, aggravated battery, aggravated endangerment of a child and interfering with law enforcement by concealing evidence.

The grand jury also charged Miles, 29, with allegedly giving false information to a detective. Miles pleaded not guilty to the charges Friday after turning himself in.

Schlitterbahn pushed back against the charges levied against Henry, Schooley and the construction company Tuesday. The indictment is “wrought with references to the outtakes of a dramatic, scripted television show, and filled with information that we fully dispute,” company spokeswoman Winter Prosapio said in a statement.

“Jeff Henry has designed waterpark rides the world over,” Prosapio said. “Nearly every waterpark that exists today has an attraction or feature based on his designs or ideas.

“The incident that happened that day was a terrible and tragic accident. We mourn the loss of this child and are devastated for his family. We know that Tyler, Jeff, and John are innocent and that we run a safe operation — our 40 years of entertaining millions of people speaks to that.”

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The U.S. Marshals Service arrested Henry on Monday in South Padre Island on a warrant out of Kansas, that state’s attorney general’s office said in a news release. Henry is due to appear in Cameron County court Thursday. A judge Tuesday ordered he be held without bond pending extradition to Kansas.

Schooley is not yet in custody, the Kansas AG’s Office said.

A separate indictment unsealed last week alleges Verrückt’s designers and operators knew the slide could cause severe bodily injury and potentially death but kept the ride open anyway. The ride’s operators knew of at least 13 injuries — including two concussions — suffered by riders, including four children.

Neither Henry, who dropped out of high school to work for his father’s water park, nor Schooley had technical or engineering credentials pertaining to amusement ride design or safety, the charging document says. Furthermore, neither man possessed the expertise required to properly and safely design a ride as complex as Verrückt, the indictment says.

Henry, who co-owns the New Braunfels theme park company with his two siblings, first conceived of the Verrückt project in November 2012 as a way to impress producers of the Travel Channel’s Xtreme Waterparks series and fast-tracked the slide’s design and construction phases, skipping over necessary calculations and safety measures in the process, the indictment claims.